apparent magnitude
by plasmacandy
Summary: The greater the magnitude, the fainter the star. —Gus x Chan


**||apparent magnitude**

**||notes :: Knocking Gus/Chan off the list~ Yay for nevermet!ships :D (More yayz for rebound!nevermet!ships)**

**Dedicated to the lovely peoples who voted for it on my poll. You know who you are. **

**(And so do I. I have PSYCHIC POWERS~)**

**This is one of my vaguer pieces, and I'd really like feedback on whether the storyline is understandable :c Should I make my stories less vague? Opinions please D:**

**Heads-up: There is mention of Masquerade/Chan and Spectra/Gus.**

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—_apparent magnitude_

|the greater the **magnitude**, the fainter the **star**|

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He shouldn't have cared. He wasn't the type to take pity on humans, after all. But having faced death and returned alive, he found himself rebelling against the natural order of things.

Maybe it was because she was so familiar, and how, when he looked at her, he was reminded of his own blind devotion so many light-years ago. Her spectre was just as beautiful as his, and at first glance it was painfully obvious that the masked man she followed was the keeper of her frail heart. A dream eater, preying on the foolish romantic with the dark hair and too-hopeful eyes.

So when his shoulder brushed hers on the sidewalk - and she recoiled with a start, bowing slightly in apology - he didn't affix her with the usual glare. He later recalls this as their beginning, even though she has never learned his name.

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They were like two blind mice ensnared by two smiling cats, too dazzled by the sharp claws and fanged grins to notice that they were caught.

Gus knew very well that there was a red string connecting him to his master (he just didn't know he was bound with it).

Chan knew very well that gold threads looped themselves around her wrists like spider-silk chains (she just didn't know they were venom-coated).

So they were both hopeless, but neither suffered during their slow deaths.

They were -

_malicious, cruel, devious_

- happy.

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Sophisticated girl (not quite), can I decode your puzzling frowns?

And she turns them all down with blank looks, an unruffled raven perched primly out of reach.

But even the great fall, and soon the solitary little kite's locked soul is oxidized with blue-violet moonbeams. She merely smiles, smiles, smiles; eyes mirthfully bleary from reading kaleidoscopic love notes written on cheap stationary.

So it's no surprise. "Yes," she breathes, "I will be your everything."

And in the split-seconds that punctuate those lovestruck whispers, her dear iced marauder crushes the brittle rock-candy heart she's grown (and licks the sugary blood off his fingertips).

Gus shouldn't have cared. He wasn't the type to take pity on humans, after all.

But when he sees her making eyes at the liquor store sign like she's sighted a lost love, and the neon sign's light hits her in just the right way, she looks so eerily lost and so eerily like his own piteous reflection way back then.

"Excuse me," and he hesitates on the "miss."

She looks back down to watch polluted water weave trickling trails into gutters, and for a moment, he berates himself for propositioning her.

But then she says yes.

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Prideful boy (not quite), can I lessen the weight of all those broken pipe dreams?

He glares at them, scoffs at them, hates them; their tiger-lily tresses and their high-sky eyes, their clean-cut perceptions of morality and happiness.

She doesn't tell him about right and wrong and rehabilitation. She says nothing but whispered curses in her native tongue as she perspires under the shoddy hotel lighting, fingers threaded in his hair as they move in some twisted interpretation of a tango.

Then she freezes, arches, mouths another man's name, and when gravity releases her, she falls back shuddering and sobbing.

He stares at the wall blankly, knowing he has committed the greatest treason against his master possible.

"I shouldn't have cared," he mutters to himself later, trying to wash all the guilt off in the shower like it's layers of dust. "I'm not the type to take pity on humans, after all."

He sees his reflection in the fogged-up mirror and sighs ruefully at the insignias on his shoulder blades, raw scratches etched with polished fingernails.

Apparently, she wasn't the type of human to take pity on him, either.


End file.
